Chapter 55
Arwen's scream ripped through the House of Wind. Her legs tangled with the sheets which were damp with her sweat. She thrashed in them, trapped somewhere between her nightmare and reality. Azriel had fled from his bed the moment he awoke to the horrifying sound and it wasn't long before he heard Cassian thumping down the hall behind him.
"Arwen?" He leant over her wild form across the bed, hands hesitating in the air, not knowing if waking her to his touch would make it worse. "Arwen."
The moonlight from the windows she kept constantly open let a trickle of moonlight in, illuminating the scene before him. Azriel's shadows knocked around him, whispering warnings in his ears. Cassian veered around the other side of the bed, hesitating as Azriel had, but took the leap he wouldn't and reached for her.
"Sweetheartâ" he grasped her flailing shoulders with the strength of a gentle giant "âArwen, sweetheart. Wake up. Wake up."
Arwen's throat tore with a final scream and her eyes flashed open, the near-full moon marking them with spots of white. Cassian moved with her, still holding her shoulders as she pressed herself towards the headboard, panting like chased prey. Azriel knelt one knee on the bed, but one foot on the ground kept him prepared to move if she much as hinted at wanting the space.
She seized Cassian's wrists, meekly kicking at the sheets as she fought for air. But she didn't push him away.
"It was just a dream," Cassian whispered to her. "You're in Velaris. You're safe."
Azriel had always been jealous of this part of Cassian. In truth, he had been jealous of many parts of Cassian, but this one was close to the top of the list. The part of Cassian that knew what to say, knew what to do. Azriel knew how to do his workâhand him a knife and tell him to cut out a gall bladder and he could do it blindfolded without a drop of blood getting on his boots. But ask him to comfort somebody and he was like a stuttering child. He had come to terms with that years ago, but it made a new sting as Arwen tipped her body towards Cassian rather than him.
Arwen's cheeks flooded with tearsâthe rawest reaction he had witnessed from her since her wakingâher nails digging into Cassian's arm. She clawed her way closer until his dark grey nightshirt was in her grasp and her arms wrung around his neck. Cassian returned the hold, his thick arm wrapping under hers, the other cradling the back of her thighs. Azriel's eyes lingered on his brother's grip, watching how the tanned, unscarred hand tightened on the silk and her flesh. Places Azriel had only dared touch her in a few moments of intimacy that Cassian gripped with no uncertainty. Arwen had refused the touch of them all and now she clung to Cassian like it was everything she ever needed.
The one saving thought he had in those few seconds, was that Cassian's face betrayed that he understood the depth of meaning behind the return of his hold. The way his eyes shut for a moment and his face tightened. Azriel reminded himself that he wasn't the only one to have missed her. He wasn't the only one waiting to feel that embrace again.
The hand on her back stroked her spine as Cassian situated Arwen into his lap, letting her burrow her face into the side of his neck, her body racked with sobs. He looked over at Azriel. "I've got her," he promised.
Azriel nodded because that was all he could do. He rose off the side of the bed and stepped away, sinking back into the shadows. He didn't leave just yet though. Letting himself fall into the shadow's cover, he stayed and watched them.
Cassian tilted himself to lean up against the headboard, letting Arwen set herself however she pleased. She remained how they were, resting her entire weight against his front. He murmured softly to herâreassurances. After a time, she began to calm and stop squirming, making small nods at his words. Cassian smiled, continuing his soft strokes down her spine.
Azriel wasn't sure what he was waiting to see but decided that he would leave once he was certain she would be alright. When that happened, he returned to his bedchambers. Sleep never found him. Or perhaps, he never found sleep. Sitting on the edge of his bed for the rest of the night, he strained his ears, waiting to hear her screams again. Or something similar that indicated a more pleasurable event.
He knew it was stupid. Cassian's relationship with Arwen had never been one of the things he was jealous of when it came to his brother. Never felt like he had a reason to be. Azriel had been there through her phase of adoration for the general in her younger yearsâhad seen what she was like with open affection for another male. He had also seen how it moved into what they had before the incident. The transparency of what they meant to each other.
But things were different now. Arwen was different, and so was Cassian. Not to mention that Cassian was sex deprived. And a female Cassian knew well already, that had already accepted his attention and affection, and returned it, would need only a little tip before forming into something more. A simple slip of his hand from her thigh to someplace higher. The brush of her breath against the wrong place on his neck. The slight adjustment of her weight in his lap. A fingertip on his wing. All of it could snap that new, instinctive desire into his brother. He once thought of Arwen as a sister and that had changed. Which meant that it was very much possible for Cassian to start viewing her in a new light too. Especially now, after such a long time apart.
In the morning, Azriel took his concerns to Rhysand. About the nightmare, that was.
Rhysand ran a hand down his face at the early wake-up call and met with Azriel in the kitchen of the town house. He had made the effort to stay up at the House but Feyre had wanted to spend time with her sisters (Azriel didn't bother asking how that went) and he was certain that Arwen wouldn't be interested in his company any time soon.
"Nightmare?" Rhysand echoed. He swallowed his morning tea with a line etched between his brows. "Do you know what about?" Azriel shook his head. "Should I go up and see her?"
"Cassian stayed with her," he replied.
Surprise flashed through the High Lord's face. "Cassian?"
"All night," Azriel confirmed, straining to keep his voice flat and his mind clear. Fruitless as those attempts were. He had checked in on her chamber just before he left to find them both asleep and entangled. Azriel ignored Rhysand's pointed look that might have prompted a growl of answer if he had not placed his thoughts elsewhere already. "I'm worried about her."
Rhysand snorted flatly. "Understatement of the century. We all are."
"I know you've noticed it too," he continued, "that she's acting... Strange."
Rhysand sighed and said, "She just came back from the dead, Az. We give her time and as much of it as she needs."
Azriel arched a brow. "You came back from the dead too."
"After a whole ten minutes," he snapped back, though the bite in it was missing. "Not two hundred and fifty years."
"And shouldn't it have felt like that for her?" Azriel pointed out, which made Rhysand pause. "She said it herself yesterday that she doesn't remember anything. Her last memories should be coming home from the Dawn Court. I brought her down here after dinner and we... We talked. The poison took her suddenlyâshe wouldn't have even realised it was coming. Why we couldn't do anything." Rhysand looked to the ground, the muscles of his jaw bulging. "I can understand if she was confused or frightened but she's not. It's something else. And those scars on her hands. Rhys, she came back in the same dress she died in. She hadn't physically changed one bit except those scars."
The mug landed on the bench with a heavy clank. Rhysand rubbed his mouth, nose flaring. "She wouldn't let me look at them. She won't talk to me, Az. I..." He shook his head and rolled his lips to his teeth. Rhysand gave a convicting shake of his head. "I won't lose her again, no matter the cost. I give my life to that promise."
~
Arwen let her feet sway gently as they hung over the edge of the rooftop on the House of Wind. She pulled the blanket she had stolen from her bed tighter around her shoulders. Cassian sat on her right, one of his legs stretched out past her back, the other tucked under its knee so he could face her. He hadn't asked yet, but he was waiting.
"Are you thinking of jumping off?"
Her head snapped up from where she had been staring at the ground below her feet. "What?"
Cassian smiled. "How you used to. Test my flight speed."
A small breath shot through her nose. "No," she murmured. "Just thinking." Her thumb ran over the scars on her wrist.
A headache lingeredâprobably from dehydration as she hadn't had anything to drink since the day before. Cassian had offered to bring her a glass, as well as something to eat after she had woken but she had been reluctant to let him go, still reeling from what haunted her through the night. So they stayed in her bed until he told her that there was someplace better, and he had carried her to the rooftop. That contact still remained; her back against his knee and calf, his thumb making small circles on her spine as his arm rested over that knee.
"You don't have to talk, but I'm here to listen. I'm here no matter what."
Arwen dropped her head and tried to pretend that he wouldn't see how her eyes watered. "It was just a dream," she said, her voice barely holding together. "I was here, but..." She took another shaken breath. "People couldn't see me. Or hear me. No matter what I did and it was... It felt like a prison." The nightmare threw her back into the world she had been in not a month ago. It had felt so real that she believed it. As much as she would have chosen death over returning, anything was better than that realm of half-existence.
His touch became her safety. A reminder. The assurance.
She couldn't go back there.
"It's not real," said Cassian, his hand moving from her spine to the nape of her neck, weaving through the mess of her hair. "I see you. I've seen a lot of you lately." Arwen gave a weak humph. "But that doesn't mean it won't feel like it was. I've had nightmares and even when I woke up, I couldn't convince myself there weren't real until I saw proof."
She rubbed at her face with the blanket. "I know." Drawing her knees up, Arwen buried her face between them as she fought to collect herself again. Cassian offered his patience with another soft rub down her back. "I'm sorry. For waking you."
His response, surprisingly, was a boisterous laugh. "I don't think you know how long it's been since I've had someone to cuddle with at night. I've missed the company." Arwen shot him a half-smileâthe strongest one she's given in decades. His own grew in response. Cassian leant forward and gently pinched her chin. "That's what's been missing."
He didn't know how much it meant to her, right then. Not what he said or what he did, but what she had done.
"Can you tell me things?" she asked. She didn't need to know, but she needed a reason to know things that she shouldn't. And listening to Cassian talk... His voice soothed an ache in her. "Things that have changed."
So Cassian did. He told her of Amaranthaâan abridged version that left out the details she knew he purposefully avoided informing her of. Like the extent of Rhysand's role. He told her of Feyre and her sisters, the rise of Hybern's King against Prythian, and the war. Nesta, by his words, was a thorn in his foot that he couldn't remove.
Arwen said to that; "I like the sound of her." It wasn't that she particularly liked Nesta, but she knew what that female had done on the battlefield. How she cried out Cassian's name and saved him. Nesta was the only reason Arwen sat next to him now.
Eventually, Arwen leant onto his front, tucking her head under his chin and kept a hand on the arm that came to rest over her front. She listened to himâhis voice, not his words. And she kept telling herself that it was real.